Durant traded to Rockets

[The Bobster]

Our roster makes no sense at all. We have an entire salary cap's worth of contracts all at the SG/swing spot. We just traded our best (or 2nd best) player for two players that play the same spot as the two current best players on the team (Book and Dunn). We have no PG, PF, or C who is worth spitting on. Our whole roster is SGs and SFs.

If we acquired Jalen Green just to trade him, great job guys, 10/10. Now every team that wants to negotiate with us knows we have to trade him, so they'll low-ball us. Don't acquire players that don't fit your current team!!! Don't acquire players just to trade them!

Also, the current Suns FO didn't get the memo that chucker bad-defense SGs are the most low-valued position in the NBA today. Every team has some guy like that who is 6'4" and can score 20 and play shitty defense on bad FG%. Teams can't wait to trade away these kinds of players. But we are stockpiling them, because I guess we're just smarter than the rest of the league.

And Dillon Brooks is going to be our grit-and-grind guy? Okay. This is a sick joke. Guy likes to get in the face of much better players and try to get under their skin, but they quickly realize he can't back up his trash talk and they completely clown him. He's a pretty good defender but he also commits a bunch of fouls and flagrants and tries to hurt people. And did I mention that he plays the same position as Ryan Dunn, who I want to be starting? Why did we acquire this guy again?

People are in this thread saying we couldn't have gotten much better for Durant. Okay, fine, let the fucker walk. $50m cap space, that's your haul for Durant. Given our situation with Beal and the 2nd apron, that is a pretty decent haul! Would give us room to sign more players to help us out. Or maybe he'd re-sign with us and end his career here. Not the best outcome but maybe better than the puu-puu platter of oops-all-SGs and SFs we're about to watch.

Mark my words: We will not make the playoffs for the next 7+ years. We're going to be an irrelevant team through 2031, maybe 2032, and further. Once we start getting our own picks back, maybe we can start to recover. But we are going to be a laughingstock franchise through the rest of the 2020s, easily.

Good thing there's no game for four more months.

[TOO]

The season ended 3 freakin days ago. Jesus Christ.

[Split T]

Mori been holding that in the chamber

[O_Gardino]

I agree with Marty's core point. The current roster needs a LOT of work, and the Suns have put themselves in a position that makes the work harder. It's going to take a long time to dig out of this hole while management and Ishbia learn how to run an NBA team.

[Split T]

I agree with Marty's core point. The current roster needs a LOT of work, and the Suns have put themselves in a position that makes the work harder. It's going to take a long time to dig out of this hole while management and Ishbia learn how to run an NBA team.

Well ya, but the offseason hasn’t started yet…it’s one thing to joke about our depth chart being only SGs, but those of us doing that realize that clearly won’t be the roster that starts the season. I also don’t understand why anyone thought we’d be good next year. This was always going to be a multi year process. Just seems strange to have such a strong reaction before anything has even happened. Let the FO fail first before saying how much they suck.


Teams aren’t going to lowball us because everyone knows we have to trade our SGs…if teams want them they will trade for them. Look at Boston, every team knew they needed to shed salary and they did it while making good value trades.

I get it, we are all frustrated with where the team is and it would’ve been nice to get some amazing return for KD, but I just don’t think that return existed. We wanted the 10th pick and we wanted Dillon Brooks. I wouldn’t have valued Brooks that high, but he is good and definitely better than Ryan Dunn at this point. It’s not a bad thing to add better players. Dunn will still play.

I think the Green fit is bad, but he’s still young and talented. The spacing in Houston was awful…I think there’s a world where he’s quite a bit better if we put the right spacing around him.

I know I tend to be an optimist, but I think I’m also a let me see it first guy. And a wait until the whole picture is viewable. I remember James Jones coming in and making a bunch of what seemed to be bad trades and the team ended up significantly better the next year. I’m gonna wait and see.

[TOO]

I agree with Marty's core point. The current roster needs a LOT of work, and the Suns have put themselves in a position that makes the work harder. It's going to take a long time to dig out of this hole while management and Ishbia learn how to run an NBA team.

Well ya, but the offseason hasn’t started yet…it’s one thing to joke about our depth chart being only SGs, but those of us doing that realize that clearly won’t be the roster that starts the season. I also don’t understand why anyone thought we’d be good next year. This was always going to be a multi year process. Just seems strange to have such a strong reaction before anything has even happened. Let the FO fail first before saying how much they suck.


Teams aren’t going to lowball us because everyone knows we have to trade our SGs…if teams want them they will trade for them. Look at Boston, every team knew they needed to shed salary and they did it while making good value trades.

I get it, we are all frustrated with where the team is and it would’ve been nice to get some amazing return for KD, but I just don’t think that return existed. We wanted the 10th pick and we wanted Dillon Brooks. I wouldn’t have valued Brooks that high, but he is good and definitely better than Ryan Dunn at this point. It’s not a bad thing to add better players. Dunn will still play.

I think the Green fit is bad, but he’s still young and talented. The spacing in Houston was awful…I think there’s a world where he’s quite a bit better if we put the right spacing around him.

I know I tend to be an optimist, but I think I’m also a let me see it first guy. And a wait until the whole picture is viewable. I remember James Jones coming in and making a bunch of what seemed to be bad trades and the team ended up significantly better the next year. I’m gonna wait and see.

Well said.

[O_Gardino]

Look, guys, it's not my job to talk y'all out of your optimism. But you have to at least understand how wild it is to pretend there isn't a strong pattern of failure since Ishbia took over. If you believe that things will be different now with Ishbia's hand picked GM and his promise to be more involved, that's your choice. You can wait and see, but I personally have already seen enough to make a judgment. They can change my mind when they get different results.

[Split T]

Look, guys, it's not my job to talk y'all out of your optimism. But you have to at least understand how wild it is to pretend there isn't a strong pattern of failure since Ishbia took over. If you believe that things will be different now with Ishbia's hand picked GM and his promise to be more involved, that's your choice. You can wait and see, but I personally have already seen enough to make a judgment. They can change my mind when they get different results.

I mean that’s fine. I don’t think it’s wrong to have a pessimistic outlook…it’s just the degree of it…and I’m actually not talking about you OG. My response was more to Mori who says we won’t touch the playoffs for 7 years…I don’t really understand the confidence in a claim like that…and the implication that if we just made a slightly better KD trade things would be different.

Team made a lot of bad decisions that got us to this point. Those are a bigger issue than the KD return to me. I wish we got a bunch of our picks back too, but we did get the 10th pick in this draft. Let’s nail that pick, rehaul the roster and spend a year changing the culture…then see where we are at in 2026. If we still suck, then trade Booker to Houston for our picks.

[TOO]

What's the point of being a fan of you're just gonna be miserable? Seems like a waste of energy at that point to me. I completely stopped watching the Suns the 2nd half of the season because they were atrocious, no sense in not enjoying yourself. Optimism is why sports is fun. The NBA has so much parity that you can't really write anyone off, even this team.

[Shabazz]

To me, nothing was more dispiriting than the Gregory hire. Both the process that led to it, and the final result.

I'm mainly putting my hopes in the behind-the-scenes guys like Matt Tellem being wizards at what they do.

[Split T]

Ya the Gregory hire didn’t sit well with me either

[JeremyG]

Look, guys, it's not my job to talk y'all out of your optimism. But you have to at least understand how wild it is to pretend there isn't a strong pattern of failure since Ishbia took over. If you believe that things will be different now with Ishbia's hand picked GM and his promise to be more involved, that's your choice. You can wait and see, but I personally have already seen enough to make a judgment. They can change my mind when they get different results.

My response was more to Mori who says we won’t touch the playoffs for 7 years…I don’t really understand the confidence in a claim like that…and the implication that if we just made a slightly better KD trade things would be different.

Well “slightly better” could have meant getting our 2027 pick, landing the #1 overall pick, and drafting a superstar. So yeah that would be a lot different.

[O_Gardino]

Look, guys, it's not my job to talk y'all out of your optimism. But you have to at least understand how wild it is to pretend there isn't a strong pattern of failure since Ishbia took over. If you believe that things will be different now with Ishbia's hand picked GM and his promise to be more involved, that's your choice. You can wait and see, but I personally have already seen enough to make a judgment. They can change my mind when they get different results.

I mean that’s fine. I don’t think it’s wrong to have a pessimistic outlook…it’s just the degree of it…and I’m actually not talking about you OG. My response was more to Mori who says we won’t touch the playoffs for 7 years…I don’t really understand the confidence in a claim like that…and the implication that if we just made a slightly better KD trade things would be different.

Team made a lot of bad decisions that got us to this point. Those are a bigger issue than the KD return to me. I wish we got a bunch of our picks back too, but we did get the 10th pick in this draft. Let’s nail that pick, rehaul the roster and spend a year changing the culture…then see where we are at in 2026. If we still suck, then trade Booker to Houston for our picks.

That's a fair and reasonable take, Split. I hope they do nail the draft and change the culture.

[Superbone]

I think the Green fit is bad, but he’s still young and talented. The spacing in Houston was awful…I think there’s a world where he’s quite a bit better if we put the right spacing around him.

I know I tend to be an optimist, but I think I’m also a let me see it first guy. And a wait until the whole picture is viewable. I remember James Jones coming in and making a bunch of what seemed to be bad trades and the team ended up significantly better the next year. I’m gonna wait and see.

Like Ott said, it's his job to put players in a position to succeed and make them better. Let's see how he does with Green.

[Superbone]

Look, guys, it's not my job to talk y'all out of your optimism. But you have to at least understand how wild it is to pretend there isn't a strong pattern of failure since Ishbia took over. If you believe that things will be different now with Ishbia's hand picked GM and his promise to be more involved, that's your choice. You can wait and see, but I personally have already seen enough to make a judgment. They can change my mind when they get different results.

Who here has done that? I'd like to know. Every person here has said he struck out with his 3 major deals, KD, Beal, Camara. Took us out of a promising situation into a bad one. All we're saying is, let's see, from this point forward, what happens before we cry into our beer.

[Superbone]

To me, nothing was more dispiriting than the Gregory hire. Both the process that led to it, and the final result.

I'm mainly putting my hopes in the behind-the-scenes guys like Matt Tellem being wizards at what they do.

That's a very fair point and I think everybody here agrees with it. Just seemed like straight cronyism. He has 0 GM experience.

[O_Gardino]

Look, guys, it's not my job to talk y'all out of your optimism. But you have to at least understand how wild it is to pretend there isn't a strong pattern of failure since Ishbia took over. If you believe that things will be different now with Ishbia's hand picked GM and his promise to be more involved, that's your choice. You can wait and see, but I personally have already seen enough to make a judgment. They can change my mind when they get different results.

Who here has done that? I'd like to know. Every person here has said he struck out with his 3 major deals, KD, Beal, Camara. Took us out of a promising situation into a bad one. All we're saying is, let's see, from this point forward, what happens before we cry into our beer.

That was in response to this:

► Show Spoiler

I agree with Marty's core point. The current roster needs a LOT of work, and the Suns have put themselves in a position that makes the work harder. It's going to take a long time to dig out of this hole while management and Ishbia learn how to run an NBA team.

Well ya, but the offseason hasn’t started yet…it’s one thing to joke about our depth chart being only SGs, but those of us doing that realize that clearly won’t be the roster that starts the season. I also don’t understand why anyone thought we’d be good next year. This was always going to be a multi year process.

Just seems strange to have such a strong reaction before anything has even happened. Let the FO fail first before saying how much they suck.

► Show Spoiler

Teams aren’t going to lowball us because everyone knows we have to trade our SGs…if teams want them they will trade for them. Look at Boston, every team knew they needed to shed salary and they did it while making good value trades.

I get it, we are all frustrated with where the team is and it would’ve been nice to get some amazing return for KD, but I just don’t think that return existed. We wanted the 10th pick and we wanted Dillon Brooks. I wouldn’t have valued Brooks that high, but he is good and definitely better than Ryan Dunn at this point. It’s not a bad thing to add better players. Dunn will still play.

I think the Green fit is bad, but he’s still young and talented. The spacing in Houston was awful…I think there’s a world where he’s quite a bit better if we put the right spacing around him.

I know I tend to be an optimist, but I think I’m also a let me see it first guy. And a wait until the whole picture is viewable. I remember James Jones coming in and making a bunch of what seemed to be bad trades and the team ended up significantly better the next year. I’m gonna wait and see.

[Split T]

For the record the FO I was talking about was Gregory. He didn’t do any of the stuff the last 3 years

[Kryptonic]

For the record the FO I was talking about was Gregory. He didn’t do any of the stuff the last 3 years

When I say front office, I'm talking about Ishbia and how he's played GM himself... so It does include 3 years for me.

[Uncle_Gene]

How's everything folks ? Long time, no see. Hope everything has been good with all of you. Now for Gene's 2¢. I know I'm a few days late.

For what the Suns got back in the Durant deal, I can't complain too much. The best offensive player and arguably the best defensive player from the 2nd seed in the West (Green and Brooks) came back in return. A 1st rounder and five 2nd round picks I think is decent for a man that is still a great player and will be 37 years old in September.

Jalen Green it's crazy athletic, can put the ball on the floor and get to the basket. Suns could definitely use a player like that. Dillon Brooks is the defensive player Suns need on the wing.

We all know the roster isn't complete and there's more moves to be made. However, the sports analysts giving the Suns grades of C- and D- is crazy. There just weren't that many offers out there, plain and simple.

I wish things would have worked out with that squad, but there was too much roster imbalance and changes needed to be made. Can't wait till Monday when the free agent period opens up. It's going to be very interesting and I'm ready for the next chapter of Suns basketball.